With the federal election increasingly likely to be called this Sunday, Daily Mail Australia’s political editor Peter van Onselen sat down with the man who hopes to push Labor out of power after just one term.
‘Presumably we’re off to the polls fairly shortly and its a tight race’, Peter Dutton predicts.
‘I think people are ready for a change. I think there is a mood for change and we’ll have to put our case over the course of the 33 day campaign to demonstrate that we are ready to step up and clean up Labor’s mess and get our country back on track.’
Dutton has been in parliament since 2001 when he defeated former Democrats leader turned Labor MP Cheryl Kernot to win the Queensland seat of Dickson.
The former police officer-turned-businessman had shown an ambition for politics for a few years before winning pre-selection for Dickson at the age of 30. He made his way to John Howard’s front bench after just a single term in parliament, touted early on as someone to watch by Australia’s second-longest-serving PM.
Dutton identifies the opportunity he had to work alongside Howard and Peter Costello in the final term of the Howard government as a seminal moment in his career.
‘At a young age it was an incredible opportunity… for me it was crucial. I had always admired John Howard and Peter Costello from outside of the parliament,’ he said.
‘I had the opportunity to work with Costello as assistant treasurer, but not just Peter, also Nick Minchin as finance minister as part of the expenditure review committee. I just soaked it up.
Peter Dutton predicts the election will be a tight race. He spoke to Peter van Onselen this week about his greatest fear for Australia’s future, the nuclear debate, and why the Coalition has matched Labor’s promised Medicare boost
Most commentators are expecting a hung parliament in the aftermath of the federal election. A nightmare – but still plausible – scenario for Anthony Albanese (left, on February 28) would be losing altogether, marking the first time Australia has had a one-term government since 1931
‘I think I have brought many of those values into my approach ever since. We’ve had a very strict shadow expenditure review committee over the course of this term of parliament. It provides a discipline. It means the shadow ministers have to be across their portfolios. it means that we engage with the parliamentary budget office to ensure that we’ve got proper and sound costings on each of our policies.’
A recently announced Labor policy – an injection of an extra $8.5billion into Medicare over the next four years – tested the Coalition’s commitment to budget expenditure.
Within hours of the Labor announcement, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor announced the Coalition would match the spending. Some fiscal conservatives didn’t like it but Dutton is unrepentant.
‘We’ve done a lot of policy work including in health. We’ve gone through different options and its obvious that general practice needs support. The low numbers of graduates and trainees going into general practice is alarming. It’s an ageing workforce,’ Dutton said.
‘I’ve always been convinced of the need to invest in primary health care and general practice, but it needs to be done in a way that keeps Medicare sustainable.’
Labor strategists hoped the Coalition would refrain from matching its commitment, using differences between the parties as a political wedge. Dutton dismisses Labor’s plans to mount a scare campaign on Medicare and against him personally as a sign they are desperate.
‘Every time you hear a negative ad or an ad attacking me, know that it’s because the Labor Party doesn’t have a track record. There are no significant achievements in this term of government,’ he said.
‘Because they have no good story to tell about their time in government, they turn to a negative campaign instead. That’s the first thing people should hear when they hear the ads.’
Dutton is proud of his track record as health minister (pictured during Question Time on August 18, 2015), saying ‘hospital funding went up every year’ under his watch
Anthony Albanese used a recent interview on Channel Nine’s 60 Minutes to claim he plans to campaign on a positive agenda, but so far there is little evidence of that.
On the issue of managing health care, Dutton, despite the negative attacks, is more than happy to point to his record as health minister.
‘I had a bulk billing rate as minister of 84 per cent, it went up to 88 per cent over the course of our [Coalition] government. It’s down to 77.5 now, down nearly 11 per cent on where it was when we were in government. That’s the Labor record,’ he said.
‘They will say that when I was health minister we cut hospital funding. The fact is that hospital funding went up every year. When I was health minister we created the Medical Research Future Fund which now has $22billion and funds millions of dollars of medical research every year, providing cures and better treatments.
‘I’m proud of my track record as health minister.’
He contrasts his achievements in health with what has happened over the last three years since Labor came into office, pointing out the injection of funding for Medicare has come too late.
‘There are 272 GP clinics that have closed over the last two and a half years over the course of this government. People are putting off taking their kids to the doctors because they can’t afford the out of pocket expenses,’ he said.
‘This government doesn’t have a good track record on health, it’s why they are throwing out the scare campaign. I would just ask people to compare the facts and draw their own conclusions.’
Labor is also gearing up to attack the Coalition’s big spending plans for nuclear power. Asked if he would have announced the Opposition’s nuclear plans now that it leads in the opinion polls, Dutton replied ‘absolutely’, arguing that going nuclear is the only solution to Australia’s energy troubles.
‘It was my view that the most important aspect of getting the economy and our economic settings right was to deal with the energy dilemma,’ Dutton said.
‘There’s been problems and faults on both sides of politics over a long period of time, but we are where we are. When I look at it dispassionately, intellectually with the options available to our country, I see nuclear as a proven technology, with zero emissions, as providing base load power for the necessary renewables we have in the system, and there is nothing else that can do that.’
Dutton insists going nuclear was never about pandering to his right flank within the party.
‘If you don’t like coal and you don’t like gas and we’re transitioning away from fossil fuels, when you look at the options that are on the table and you reduce it down to what’s practical, it’s nuclear. That’s the policy we have adopted for those reasons. Not for any political reasons but because I honestly believe it’s in the country’s best interests.’
With the opinion polls where they are, most commentators are expecting a hung parliament in the election’s aftermath, which would leave both major parties to negotiate their way into minority government with the support of the crossbench.
‘To look at it objectively there is no political commentator in the country who is predicting Labor can form majority government,’ Dutton said.
‘So what does that mean? Presumably some weird construct with the Greens in a co-sharing arrangement and with some of the teals who will instinctively support Labor. That’s the one option people have got if they support Labor. There is no prospect of them forming majority government, that much is obvious.’
Despite starting the campaign with fewer than 60 seats and needing 76 seats to form majority government, Dutton insists it is an achievable goal and he isn’t approaching this election as a stepping stone towards a win in three more years time.
‘I have only ever had a one-term strategy. I know people talk about two terms, but you don’t go into this year’s grand final hoping to win next year’s. That’s the attitude that I’ve had with my colleagues right from the very first day of assuming the leadership.’
Pressed on whether getting back into government after just one term is realistic, Dutton insisted it is.
‘Yes it is achievable. After one term we have to convince people that not only is this a bad government but it will be even worse if it gets a second term,’ he said.
‘As importantly, having ticked that box you have to tick the second box that (voters) believe we can do a better job. To do that we have to provide people with a real understanding of our vision for the country and that we’re prepared to take tough decisions.’
Reminded that history is against him, with the last first-term government to lose an election doing so way back in 1931, Dutton claimed that circumstances have conspired in his favour.
‘I don’t think that an Opposition has presented as coherently or effectively as we have. I think this government is as bad as we have seen since 1931 so the preconditions are there,’ he said.
‘Importantly we’ve done a lot of work on policy over this period in opposition. We’ve had a disciplined approach, we haven’t had leadership talk and leaking by one colleague against another, positioning over different issues. I think we can form majority government.’
Asked what keeps him up at night, the Opposition Leader expressed a fear that future generations won’t be as prosperous as previous generations, citing a flight of investment overseas.
‘I am alarmed by the number of CEOs and chairs that come to see us from major companies in the mining sector, in the agricultural sector, in the manufacturing sector and they’re not investing in greenfield sites in Australia,’ he said.
‘They are taking capital and they’re investing into operations in Africa or North America or Asia or Europe. Australia is not seen as a destination that is investable at the moment.’
Dutton plans to change that.
‘That pipeline of projects really causes me concerns because we take a lot for granted in royalties and company taxes. If they are just trying to sweat the existing assets and trying to extend the life of some of the brownfield sites then that’s good, but if at the same time they’re not making investments, we will have a disruption to our significant revenues from those key sectors over the course of the next decade or two. That would be devastating to an economy like ours.’
Ironically despite identifying these concerns, the Coalition is struggling the most electorally in the mining state of WA. Dutton needs to lift the Coalition’s fortunes in the west if he wants a realistic chance of winning the election.
The American pro-nuclear energy activist Grace Stanke (centre) toured Australia last month. The viability of nuclear energy will be a major issue for voters in the coming federal election
‘We need the WA economy to be pumping because without it we’re not building schools or paving roads on the east coast,’ he said.
‘I think the state Labor brand [in WA] has carried the federal party, certainly at the federal election last time, and I think it will have a waning impact this time around at our federal election.’
Why is that?
‘The federal Labor government at the moment is really about making sure they can preside over policy which keeps Greens voters happy in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne. That’s what the modern Labor Party is about under Anthony Albanese.’
During our interview, harking back to the threat of a Labor-Greens alliance comes up regularly, a sure sign that Liberal Party research is telling them this is a risk for Albanese’s re-election. And it is perhaps a pathway to winning back traditional Liberal Party heartland seats lost to the teals at the 2022 election.
‘I think we should be very frank about the fact that if people vote for a teal candidate at the next election they are effectively voting for Anthony Albanese and Adam Bandt,’ Dutton said.
While Dutton has taken aim at Labor’s strategy to target him personally with negative ads, it is clear that the coming election campaign will see both major parties adopt the same approach.
Recent opinion polls suggest the PM has become a drag on Labor’s party vote. Whether it is because of his mismanagement of the Voice referendum or other policy missteps during Labor’s time in power, Dutton always believed the man they call Albo wasn’t up to the job of being prime minister.
‘It was always obvious that Anthony Albanese was going to be a weak leader and out of his depth because he hasn’t had the breadth of experience in different portfolios,’ Dutton said.
This Labor attack ad highlights cost-of-living measures Dutton opposed, ending with the tagline, ‘You’ll be worse off under Dutton’. However, Dutton says these negative ads only highlight Labor’s lack of ‘significant achievements’ in government
‘He’s comfortable in the infrastructure space but that’s it. It’s why he’s failed on national security, on the economy, on housing and on energy.’
There was no mention during our interview of the man most expected to take over from Albanese if Labor is re-elected: Treasurer Jim Chalmers. But Peter Dutton does identify issues within Chalmers’ portfolio as areas on major concern.
A sign perhaps that Dutton will seek to put economic management front and centre during the campaign, pitting his learnings from Howard and Costello against Labor’s track record during the lifecycle of this government and past administrations.
Dutton cited rising debt levels and unsustainable spending as problems in need of attention sooner rather than later.
‘I worry about it at a couple of levels. Firstly the amount of unrestrained spending we’ve seen from the government. The fact is the Labor Party has spent an extra $350billion since they’ve been in government. That has fuelled inflation and the home-grown inflation problem that the Reserve Bank Governor (Michele Bullock) talks about.’
Dutton wants a national debate about the role of government and what Australians are prepared to pay for, acknowledging that such a nuanced discussion probably isn’t possible in the heated environment of an election campaign.
‘Ultimately the government doesn’t have any money without taxpayers contributing and the money should be spent wisely,’ Dutton said.
While the USA has been in the headlines for other reasons lately, Dutton pointed to the lack of debate in the recent US Presidential election about debt levels as a profound problem, and not one that he wants Australia to fall into the trap of emulating.
‘I think we need to be very cautious not to get into that culture and that position because debt does matter as people know within their own households,’ he said.
Perhaps a theme will see Dutton build on during the campaign.
